


never let me down

by mareza



Series: in quiet rooms [5]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Pining, Unrequited Love, also featuring references to the late queen consort and the late duchess fraldarius, also references to compulsory heterosexuality, featuring a cameo from LITTLE BABY DIMITRI and also gilbert, past Lambert/Queen Consort, past Rodrigue Achille Fraldarius/Duchess Fraldarius
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:00:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23289652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mareza/pseuds/mareza
Summary: Deep mourning black drapes across the walls of the capital city and mark the misfortune it now wades through. The guards at the city gates need nothing but his face to identify him; they open the city to him, and in their greetings he catches clear markers of relief.Duke Fraldarius is here. He will bring the king back to his senses.Rodrigue finally goes to where he is supposed be: to Fhirdiad, to Lambert. To his duty as advisor to the king.
Relationships: Lambert Egitte Blaiddyd/Rodrigue Achille Fraldarius (onesided)
Series: in quiet rooms [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1664935
Comments: 13
Kudos: 62
Collections: Rodrigue Week 2020





	never let me down

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:** Lots of grief and references to compulsory heterosexual marriages for multiple people who didn't want them and some who did. This takes place during Fhirdiad's plague, shortly after the death of the queen consort and Rodrigue's wife, Duchess Fraldarius, so be mindful of that!
> 
>  **Notes** : This is the final piece in the set about Rodrigue grieving his wife's death. So of course it has to end with him doing what he was always meant to: going to his king and the love of his life to comfort _him_ over the loss of the queen. They really do need grief counsellors! I borrowed the idea of givers at weddings from The Priory of the Orange Tree and played liberally with Faerghus customs.
> 
> Finally, my Rodrigue Weekend mission is complete!! (Late.)

Deep mourning black drapes across the walls of the capital city and mark the misfortune it now wades through. The guards at the city gates need nothing but his face to identify him; they open the city to him, and in their greetings he catches clear markers of relief. _Duke Fraldarius is here. He will bring the king back to his senses._

What a selfish man he has been.

The royal stables seem quiet, but there could be many reasons for that. It’s seeing Gustave outside them, hailing him before he can even dismount, that offers Rodrigue the relief of knowing Lambert must be here in Fhirdiad if his former tutor and most devoted knight is not at his side. Then Rodrigue sees his old teacher’s face and recognizes the depths of his mistake.

“Lord Rodrigue,” Gustave greets, voice heavy. “Your presence has been much missed.”

Rodrigue should have been here. Rodrigue should have been with _Lambert_. What point is there to him if he runs off when Lambert needs him most?

Rodrigue braces his tone with a warm smile as he dismounts, handing over his reins to a stablehand. “My apologies. Other affairs delayed me. Where is His Majesty?”

“There were reports of pirate raids along the northern shore.” The beginning is all Rodrigue needs to know what comes next. But he remains quiet, polite and calm, hands properly still at his side, as he listens to Gustave finish. “His Majesty rode out to protect his people three days ago. We have had news of his success in battle. He is expected back today.”

“I see,” Rodrigue says. “And the region itself?”

“Badly blighted,” he says. “But there are still citizens of Faerghus pushing through.”

“And His Majesty will always rise to the defence of his people.” 

Gustave would have asked to go with Lambert. But of course, if Lambert had decided against it, Gustave would have not seen it his place to disagree. And Lambert always did love to run off without his teachers.

With an easy laugh, Rodrigue says, “What a shame I let the stablehand take my horse. It seems I will have little to occupy myself while I wait for His Majesty’s return.”

Gustave says, “You will not yet have seen Her Majesty’s tomb. The monument is greatly in her likeness.”

“Oh.” Rodrigue swallows. He links his hands together behind his back. “It’s—finished, then.”

“Yes,” Gustave replies. “While the circumstances prevented the usual customs of mourning, His Majesty would not leave his queen’s remains uncared for.”

“Of course.” Rodrigue smiles again. It feels weak. “I will see to it. Thank you, Lord Gustave.”

Gustave bows. Rodrigue walks past him, up the flight of steps into the castle itself. He stops when he is through the front doors and into a private antechamber. No one is present in that room: no guards at attention, no nobles fallen into heated debate, no servants both invisible and utterly necessary in the work. Rodrigue is alone.

There is a simple, sturdy armchair set by the fireplace. He takes it, settling with his face in his hands. Rodrigue knows the palace. He knows how to make his way to the royal tombs. This has been his second home, and there is no secret for its navigation that he did not discover in that mischievous and vibrant youth. This task should be simple.

But he can’t remember what flowers are supposed to be placed on a plague victim’s grave.

Victorine had entered their lives dancing at the height of the Red Wolf Moon. Six months before, Lambert’s father had died; Rodrigue’s parents had answered for their failure through separate acts of service, his father to Garreg Mach as a knight, his mother to the Dowager Queen as a lady-in-waiting. 

But Rodrigue had known little of his parents in his upbringing at Fhirdiad Castle, and he had never felt a true bond for either king or queen that acted as host to him, so all this upheaval meant to him only this: he had to take on the office of the duke, and he had to help Lambert become a king.

It was too busy a year to celebrate even his twenty-fourth birthday. Lambert had been very disappointed that Rodrigue didn’t want any kind of feast and insisted, at least, that Rodrigue let him have his favorite acting company put on a play. Rodrigue accused him of seeking distraction.

Then, Countess Galatea had announced Petyr’s marriage to Pauline, whom Rodrigue had been familiar with but had not known at the Academy, and Petyr had asked Rodrigue to be his giver, and so Rodrigue added on to the duties of running his new dukedom and advising a newly crowned king the task of helping a wedding run smoothly.

It was not the most complicated task of that year; Rodrigue would give it that. And a guest list was as much a review of politics as anything he did for Lambert in Fhirdiad. Galatea was always short on supplies, but Petyr was gifted at making much from little, and they found a way to make it an event worthy of Petyr’s rank. Petyr seemed to take more satisfaction in that financial challenge than in the upcoming nuptials. Yet he knew his duty. He did not complain.

Pauline’s giver was her own best friend from the Academy, the Colombe daughter Rodrigue had come to know through choir practice but had not truly known as a friend. Eris Augustine Colombe had little patience for logistics, was in a terrible temper for the entire process, and argued with the bride she was to hand away so often that Rodrigue often wondered if he would have to break up either violence or tears. But when Rodrigue had, as politely as he was trained to, asked if Eris was the best choice for the work at hand, Pauline had fixed him with a hard expression and told him not to question her choices again. 

Pauline was a Crestless second child of a Viscount, though a wealthy one. Rodrigue was then a ruling Duke with the ear of their king. That conversation left Rodrigue with the impression that he would have a silver spear run through his organs if he dared to object to Eris a second time.

In the end, it was perhaps for the best, at least for Rodrigue. Eris made such discord that she provided more distractions for Petyr to occupy himself with fixing up. The wedding came; neither bride nor groom ran away; Galatea was promised, in these turbulent times, that their heir would soon be put to work on producing more successors, and a new flux of money came into their coffers.

And then there was Victorine.

At the Academy, Lambert had had no flirtations. He told Rodrigue more than once that there was no point looking for love. Love, he said, would find him, and then he would fight for it with vigor and courage. But hunting it down would take the miracle away.

As such, Rodrigue spent seven years watching nobles push their children towards Lambert at every celebration, feast, or festival—even between quieter political meetings or when Lambert went through a tour of the kingdom. Rodrigue watched the advisors sort through eligible women, attempting to give those they felt were best suited to balance Lambert more opportunities for his company. The late king said he would not push his son, not when he himself had many years left; then the king was dead, and there was no one to push Lambert, but there was even more of an abundance of eligible individuals put in Lambert’s path. Love would find Lambert, one way or another. The whole kingdom conspired to make it so.

Still, Rodrigue’s heart held onto its fairytales. Until the evening Victorine had appeared and requested Lambert as partner for a volta, and Lambert had looked at her as if she were a mystery.

Later, Rodrigue had found out that she was one of Gustave’s preferred choices. That her calm temperament and confident air was meant to balance out Lambert’s; that it had been said, even, she had the traits of constancy and contemplation that made Rodrigue such a perfect advisor to his king. But he did not know that then. 

Then, he had sat watching them, with Lambert’s empty seat at his side, soon occupied by the bane of his wedding planning. Eris kicked her feet up onto the table, and Rodrigue hadn’t bothered to tell her not to, and together they watched the dancers perform.

Lambert looked so _happy_. 

“That’s both of us, then,” Eris had said to him. She had sighed, deep and full.

Then Rodrigue understood.

He should ask permission to be brought to the royal nursery. Rodrigue does know that. He has no memories of his childhood before he was brought to Fhirdiad Castle, of course, and would not have called Fraldarius the home of his childhood, but his upbringing in Fhirdiad had made one thing clear to him from the start: The castle was Lambert’s home. Rodrigue, raised at Lambert’s side, was both servant and guest. Lambert could always act freely, but Rodrigue was to seek permission and never be too at ease.

He knows that.

Yet he finds himself in the Royal Quarters, never asking to be allowed in. No one stops him from getting there.

“Your Grace.” 

Rodrigue looks up. There is a guard on either side of the nursery door. Both of them smile at him. Rodrigue doesn’t know their names.

“Are you here to see the young prince?” one guard asks.

Prosper and Vivienne were the guards that were most often sent to watch over Lambert and Rodrigue. Every time they slipped away, those two chased after them, exasperated and fretful, quick to scold but easy to get around. There was little that Lambert’s raw confidence and the tricks of oration Rodrigue was learning could not get them out of.

Rodrigue smiles back. “It is always an honor to see His Highness. Is he resting?”

“It’s hard to say,” the other guard admits. “He’s a quiet child. You can go in and look.”

So Rodrigue does.

The royal nursery has all the eclecticism of Lambert’s habits, but none of his old things: wooden carvings in place of swords and armor, images of the Saints instead of the tapestry of the Battle of the Eagle and the Lion once on the wall, odd crystals and glass as decoration. Everything has been moved about.

Did Victorine redecorate it before she passed, or did Rodrigue simply not notice the difference when he was here last? 

“Your Grace!” 

Beside the crib where the future king of Faerghus lies, a young woman at her knitting rises quickly to her feet. There is something in the shape of her eyes—that nose—

“Wanda?” Rodrigue asks. 

The woman smiles, and he sees in its mischief their favorite scullery maid, sneaking them treats behind the head cook’s back. “I’m honored you recognized me after all this time, Your Grace.” She completes her bow. “After the long decade, I barely recognize _you_.”

“Have I changed so much?” Rodrigue touches his face. There’s a little fuzz there, but he hasn’t let it get out of _control_. “Though you still knew me.”

“Not to be bold—”

“Of course. You are no such thing.”

Her grin widens. “Not to be bold, _Your Grace_ , but I lived in the palace long enough to know a Fraldarius when I see one.” 

“Ah,” Rodrigue says. He sometimes forgets what his father looks like. “Yes.” He brushes the idea aside and says, “And you have come back to us as a royal nurse. Blackmail over those pastries, I must assume.”

Wanda laughs at the accusation, but she quiets after, folding her hands together. “After my parents both passed, I came back to the capital for work. That was when Her Majesty was starting to really feel poorly, but she took a liking to me, and I’d just lost one of my own, so…” 

Rodrigue measures his breath. He does not let his mind stray. “I pray for their happiness in the next world.”

Then he nods to the crib and asks, “May I?”

“Go ahead. I’m sure there’s no one His Majesty would sooner trust with his boy.”

They had made a promise, once. That any children of theirs would be raised as brothers. That they were family, and so their children would be family as well.

That child, resting so peacefully in the crib, is all his father’s mess of golden hair. His nose belongs on another face, but his cheeks are Lambert’s. Even the shape of his eyes. 

How is Felix doing? He knows Felix is cared for, and Glenn, but even so—

They’re so young. They should have a parent with them.

“Has—His Majesty been here often?” Rodrigue finds himself asking.

Wanda looks at him a moment. Rodrigue doesn’t know what it is she’s searching him for until she nods to herself and says, “He seems to like here better than anywhere else in the castle except the training grounds. He spends most of his day playing with the prince when he’s home.” 

There is a reason that their promise was destined to be broken. There is a reason that no Fraldarius can ever be raised as sibling to a Blaiddyd child. Glenn may call Lambert ‘uncle’ for now, and Gustave may say that Rodrigue and Lambert were raised as brothers, but that is not the truth. There is a reason Rodrigue never once felt he was family to the man who is now his king, not for all those years growing up beside him.

Faerghus runs on an understanding of duty. When everyone respects and understands their duties, the kingdom functions smoothly. When they neglect them—when they are selfish or heartless or slothful—when they let their hearts drive them to other ends—

Rodrigue should have come sooner. He knew that. He knew that before he ever left home to answer Gautier’s call.

The baby’s eyes open. They are a wonderful blue. Rodrigue smiles, and he offers Dimitri his finger. The infant curls his own tiny hands around it and tugs.

“Careful,” Wanda warns. “You should remember better than any of us what a Blaiddyd Crest can do.”

“I’ll mind his strength.”

But Rodrigue had never minded the bruises or the breaks.

Then, muffled by the walls: a trumpet. Rodrigue draws back, his finger slipping free of Dimitri’s hold. The baby begins to cry.

“Ah,” Rodrigue says, looking back to Dimitri. And he still hasn’t gotten Victorine her flowers.

“Go,” Wanda tells him. “This one is my job.”

She knew them when this room had belonged to them, one by right and the other by generosity of spirit. She knew them when they would steal books from the library for her, and break away from lessons to play through the castle, and sneak out late at night to beg for more food. And now she’ll know Dimitri.

Rodrigue goes to his king.

The whole royal affair had been a whirlwind. Lambert had proposed by the end of Petyr and Pauline’s wedding week. Victorine’s family had accepted the engagement after just one day. By the end of Ethereal Moon, Rodrigue had been a giver twice in as many moons and had the distant sense that he really couldn’t take any more weddings. Eris, whom he was courting so that they would stop being nagged to find someone by the people around them, approached him at the end of the night and suggested they get married.

“You’re decent to put up with,” Eris said. “That’s better than most of the people my parents are looking at.”

Rodrigue’s father, still doing penance with the church, remained out of contact. His mother had written a brief letter of congratulations. But Gustave had been happy to hear it, and Lambert had thrown an arm around Rodrigue’s shoulders with a grin.

“It’s perfect, Rodrigue!” Lambert had said. Rodrigue could not stop staring at the gold ring on his hand. “We can all go hunting together now. It’s a shame we couldn’t all get married at the same time, but love is never so neat.” 

Pauline had been stony-faced acting as Eris’s giver. She never smiled at Rodrigue once. Lambert, who was Rodrigue’s, did his best with the planning. 

But after the wedding night—after Lambert’s heedlessly supportive toast, and Petyr’s grim and knowing silence, and Ambrose’s so very pleasant speech lain for all to hear and only Rodrigue to understand—

The next morning, Victorine had found him while he was readying his horse for the day’s hunt. Jeweled simply, in her riding clothes, she had stopped outside his horse’s stall, as if she were waiting permission to move through the castle’s gate. She had smiled in answer to his greeting, and when he had not withdrawn, she had gently touched his arm with a brush of kidskin gloves.

“We haven’t had the chance to really speak,” Victorine said to him. She had a gentle voice, but one that always seemed distant. Rodrigue often thought of her as someone walking through dreams.

“My apologies, Your Majesty,” Rodrigue had answered, bowing. “What is it that you need of me?”

“I don’t need anything,” she had said to him. “But I would like to be friends, if you would let me.”

Rodrigue, knowing his duty, had agreed to her request.

The week after he had wed a woman who was then almost a stranger, he spent most of his time in the company of the love of his life’s wife. Victorine rode beside him during hunts, striking down prey with the deftness of her archery and offering him her conversation. She kept him company on walks, pointing out herbs he didn’t recognize and explaining to him their uses. She engaged with him over meals, and helped him with tasks, and watched him patiently, and all the while Rodrigue could not stop thinking of how well she fit into place at Lambert’s side.

Then, on the last day, as they walked through the Fraldarius winter-frosted gardens—nothing as splendorous as Fhirdiad’s, a secondary priority to their family—she had said, “Do you grow foxgloves? I like foxgloves.”

Rodrigue had no idea. He offered to call the gardener, but Victorine had stopped him with a light touch.

“I’m sorry for pushing you to be friends,” Victorine said. “I won’t push you any more. But please remember that the offer is always open.”

Rodrigue, startled, had answered, “I have accepted your friendship, Your Majesty. Forgive me if I’ve done anything to suggest otherwise.”

“Yes,” Victorine agreed. “But you haven’t given me yours.”

That was when Rodrigue realized she knew. She had always known.

Victorine smiled then, as gentle in expression as in the way she touched his arm. “I hope you will one day let me get to know you, Rodrigue. I have a feeling I would like you very much.”

That day, the guests had all gone home. Lambert rode back to the capital with his queen and his soldiers, embracing Rodrigue once more before he departed. Ambrose had returned to Gautier, wife a perfect performance on his arm, and Petyr had stepped aside to speak with Rodrigue as their wives made their final farewells. 

When they all converged on Fhirdiad to celebrate the queen’s birthday that Horsebow Moon, Rodrigue brought a scattering of violets amongst the last of summer’s foxgloves. Victorine had accepted them into her arms and asked him why he had added violets to the bouquet. 

“They’re my favorite flower, Your Majesty,” Rodrigue had said.

Victorine’s smile was brilliant. “If you’d like, you can call me Victorine.”

When Rodrigue finds Lambert, tracking him down to the royal stables, his friend and king is effusive as ever. He asks after Rodrigue’s children. He speaks happily of his own infant son. He still wears his armor, brushing off his squire’s efforts to get him out of heavy plates and gauntlets, as if Lambert is ready to throw himself onto his horse right there and ride out at the first sign of trouble: hero, leader, warrior king.

Rodrigue says, politely, “You may leave us now, Freiderich. I’ll help His Majesty with his armor.”

Rodrigue learned at a very early age that telling Lambert to do something always garners too much attention and poses the risk of Lambert using his authority to overrule Rodrigue’s. He also learned that if he presumed Lambert’s agreement, most people would believe he already had it.

The squire is already at the door as Rodrigue steps forward to begin unfastening Lambert’s gauntlets. “There’s no need to bother with that,” Lambert tells him. “I was thinking I’d go out again this evening. After stopping by Dimitri, of course, but it’s never too early for him to get used to seeing his father in armor!” 

Rodrigue smiles, very politely, and pulls off Lambert’s right gauntlet. “He is only three months old, Your Majesty. Surely he’d appreciate a softer touch.”

“Do you think?” Lambert asks. “I don’t know if I even remember what my parents’ hands looked like without their gauntlets. Besides, he has his nurse for that kind of thing! That’s right: Rodrigue, do you remember Wanda?”

Left gauntlet off, now. Rodrigue silently counts down the seconds it will take for the squire to clear the hall. “How could I forget the only scullery maid bold enough to extort books from the prince in return for illegal sweets?”

Lambert’s laugh is as rich and bright as ever. Perhaps more. “Just so! She’s a wonder with Dimitri. Showed up just a couple months ago, and she was perfect for the job.”

“Yes,” Rodrigue says, levelly. Five more seconds. “She told me that the late queen picked her out for it.”

Horses, when they’re spooked, become wild-eyed and erratic. They canter in place, turning their heads as best they can. They whip their tails, ready to strike at anything behind him. Rodrigue has seen a similar look in humans, too.

He has not seen it in Lambert often, but there was a time. Just after the late king’s hunting accident. It was a slow, painful death, poisoned from the inside, with healers and doctors able to do nothing to help. Lambert, with that wild look on his face, had dragged Rodrigue out riding daily rather than share a roof with the steady approach of his grief.

“That must be how I found her,” Lambert says. “Anyway, let’s go see my son!”

“Your armor first, Lambert.” Rodrigue reaches for the straps holding the breastplate in place. Lambert brushes his hand away.

“Don’t bother with that. You’ve already got the gauntlets off. This is good enough to go.”

The squire must be gone by now. There will be no one to hear them argue.

Rodrigue asks, “When was the last time you got out of armor?”

He’s met with an immediate shrug and a withdrawal. “Not long ago. It isn’t as if I sleep with it on.”

“You have before.”

“I’m not doing it now.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Not _often_.” Lambert doesn’t stop Rodrigue’s second attempt to get at the straps. He’s drawing inwards. “You always worry too much. You know I can take care of myself.”

“You can,” Rodrigue answers, evenly. “Are you?”

“You’re such a nag.”

“I’m not nagging, I’m just worried.”

“That’s why people nag,” Lambert retorts. “I’m fine, Rodrigue! Look at me, back from battle without a hint of injury. I didn’t even need healing in the fight. Let’s go see Dimitri now.”

“I would love to see your son again,” Rodrigue says, very firmly. “But I still haven’t been to Victorine’s tomb.”

“Ah!” Lambert steps back. His grin is big, too big. There’s too much force in his jovial slap of Rodrigue’s shoulder. “No time for that! They say there are bandits in a village east of here, terrorizing my people. We have to see Dimitri, of course, but after that you should mount up and join me for the fight like in the old days.”

“Lambert,” Rodrigue says. “I must pay my respects.”

“Of course,” Lambert agrees. “When we have the time. For now, our people need our protection.”

Victorine, if she were here, would have intervened. Victorine would have taken Lambert with a firm and gentle hand and steered him along the right path. She and Rodrigue had an understanding about that. They both knew what made Lambert great, and so they both understood where he needed support. Rodrigue could be at ease in Fraldarius with the knowledge that his queen only made his king stronger.

But Victorine is dead. There is only Rodrigue. He was raised as much to be the words between Lambert and disaster as to be the body between him and a blade.

“Lambert,” Rodrigue says, again. “Have you been to your wife’s tomb?”

Lambert becomes still. He looks at Rodrigue, and then away.

“I built her tomb, Rodrigue.”

“You commissioned it,” Rodrigue corrects. “Then you left to fight pirates. During a plague. Without your best knights. You’re being reckless with your life and your son’s, and it needs to stop.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lambert scoffs. “A few coastal invaders from Sreng aren’t going to catch me out.”

“There are always accidents,” Rodrigue answers. “And there is always the illness that took your wife.”

Lambert grits out, “I’ll be fine.”

“And what if you aren’t? Your son isn’t even six months.”

“ _Dimitri_ will be fine,” Lambert insists. “ _If_ something happens—and it won’t—he has Wanda. He has Gustave. He has you.”

“No,” Rodrigue says, “he doesn’t. If something happens, and it could, he has _Rufus_. Rufus will raise him. Rufus will shape who he becomes.”

Lambert shakes his head. “No,” he says. “You’re my friend. My advisor. Dimitri will have you to guide him.”

“He won’t have me enough.” Rodrigue makes Lambert look at him. He makes him meet his eyes. “I will visit him, Lambert. I will care for and protect him as best as I can. But for all that I may wish to, I cannot raise him because I am your vassal, not your wife. If we lose you now, he’ll be raised by Rufus.”

Lambert is quiet. It’s such a rare thing, Rodrigue almost wants to tease him for it, but he knows he must stay firm. Then Lambert says, “You were always too hard on Rufus. He isn’t that bad.”

“Rufus is an alcoholic and a womanizer, whose bastards have been abandoned across the span of Itha, and if he becomes regent, the best outcome for your son would be your brother’s neglect.”

Lambert has always had the habit, when he feels trapped, of staring at the ground. Of frowning at it, as if it could find him a way out. 

Rodrigue pulls off the rest of Lambert’s armor. “I’m your friend, Lambert. Talk to me.”

“I—She isn't—" Lambert swallows and tries again. "She isn't in these places where she has always been. How can I be here if she isn't?”

Because it is true, but without his voice showing how deep runs the truth of it, Rodrigue tells him, “I understand.”

He sees it a moment before it comes, like the crack that predicts the crumbling of a castle wall. Rodrigue guides Lambert backwards, down onto a stablehand’s stool. He hopes it is easier for Lambert to collapse here now that his armor has come off. Kneeling before him, Rodrigue takes Lambert’s hand in his.

“I’m sorry,” Lambert says. He swallows. Doesn’t look up. “I have been a terrible king.”

“Ah, well,” Rodrigue says. “I won’t tell anyone if you won’t.” 

It gets Lambert to laugh. Rodrigue grins, his mirror. Lambert tells him, “You always know when to make a joke.”

“You’re the only one who ever says that.”

“I’m the only person who needs to. I’m the king.”

“I don’t know how well that edict will play with your subjects, Your Majesty.”

“Then they’ll have to try their hand at rebelling, and we’ll take care of them.” Lambert still has his hand in Rodrigue’s. Even through his gloves, Rodrigue feels the weight of it. The warmth. 

“Rodrigue,” Lambert says. “I have been a terrible friend.”

“Don’t be absurd, Lambert, you’ve always been—” 

“Gustave told me that you went to Gautier, after.” He looks at Rodrigue, open and unsuspecting. “I hope that Ambrose gave you the support you needed.”

“I…” 

“And I’m sorry,” Lambert continues with a squeeze of his hand, “that you didn’t come to me for it. I understand why.”

“No,” Rodrigue says, too quickly, “That wasn’t—Your Majesty, it was my own failing—”

“It’s alright,” Lambert says. “Just... please allow me the chance to do better in the future, Rodrigue. For you.”

Rodrigue has been raised to answer his king. To speak on his behalf, to use his words to guide him. He has been trained since they were children to know what to say and when to say it.

His throat is too tight to let anything out.

Lambert’s smile has always been sunlight to him, and now it is summer itself as he pulls them both to their feet—summer under scattered clouds, summer with a chilling wind, but summer all the same. Lambert says, still holding his hand, “Everything will be different without them.”

Rodrigue has no answer. He asks instead, “Would you like to see your son now?”

Lambert considers it a moment. “Yes,” he says, slowly. “But we should see Victorine first. I want to see him afterward.”

Lambert adds, “I think he has something of her smile.”

They had been with the royal family at the new prince’s birth. Eris, heavily pregnant, and Pauline, barely less, had sat side by side at the feast celebrating the occasion. Lambert had taken Rodrigue and Eris to see the infant, swaddled up and braced in his mother’s arms, and the child had reached out towards Eris’s stomach. _A sign,_ Victorine had said, with that dreamy serenity that made her seem like a prophet, _of the bond that is to come._

But the plague was worsening, and bodies were pressed too closely together in Fhirdiad. Even with all the protection of royal halls, the doctors recommended leaving the city for the safety of the expectant mothers and their future children. The royal family would soon retreat to an estate further into their own territory, away from the major populations. The royal advisor and his wife were instructed to do the same.

It hadn’t been enough.

The royal tombs had been perfect for the games of their childhood—out of the way, full of dark corners and narrow crevasses, decorated with monuments to Lambert’s ancestors to spark their imaginations for playing pretend. It was also, of course, entirely off-limits. How often had he and Lambert come dashing through here, hiding and seeking, wrestling between the marble resting places of the Blaiddyd line? How often had they been scolded for roughhousing in this sacred place, sneaking away from their obligations, risking damage to records of their history? 

And of course there was Lambert’s Crest to content with. Inevitably, they were left apologizing to the king and queen for breaking off Lambert’s great-grandfather’s nose.

But today, the tombs are quiet. The sky, an ugly and overcast grey, bleeds away what natural color reflects onto stone and marble. All the vibrance has washed away.

Victorine’s likeness is excellent. Resting there, she almost seems to have been transformed, as if by a witch of old. Rodrigue is very careful settling violets and foxgloves into her marble hands. Lambert is even more wary of damage, putting down his own bouquet. 

Rodrigue asks, “Would you like me to say the prayer?” 

“I’ve heard it too often lately.”

“Alright.” Rodrigue looks down on the tomb. A wonderful likeness, yes—but marble is not the medium for Victorine. She was too warm, too soft of touch, for such a material.

Even so, Rodrigue threads his fingers through her cold, immortal hand. “Hello, Victorine. I tracked your husband down again.”

Lambert laughs.

They say what they need to, what they can. There is more left unsaid. But when they are done, walking in somber quietness down the paths that they’d snuck through in their youth, Lambert wraps an arm around Rodrigue’s shoulder. Like his hand, it is warm and it is heavy, but Rodrigue is glad to carry the weight. 

“I’ll come back with you to Fraldarius, if my other advisors will let me get away with it,” Lambert says. (Rodrigue knows they won’t.) “I want to see your new son.”

“He is much louder than yours,” Rodrigue warns. “He has been keeping his nurses up day and night.”

“Wonderful!” Lambert answers. “His shouting can make up for the quietness in mine.”

“I think Glenn has them both covered on that.” He adds, with fondness, “He wanted to come visit you. He’ll be very happy, whenever you make it down to us.”

“It will be good to see him,” Lambert agrees. And then, gently, he nudges Rodrigue’s shoulder with his own. “And Eris, as well.”

“I haven’t…” 

Rodrigue looks up to the castle. Fhirdiad Castle is low here in the center, its fortifications built up in a nexus out from here. But defense demands height, and so even here he can see the battlements, circling around this space, soldiers in its spaces ready to rise at a trumpet’s call. It is comfortingly familiar. 

He says, “I haven’t been able to go through her things yet.”

Lambert squeezes his shoulder. And he offers again his warmth, that smile Rodrigue would follow anywhere. “Let me help out,” Lambert says. “You’re not in this alone, old friend.”

What bonds they formed between their marriages—the ones they had chosen, the ones they had found of necessity—

Those connections were different from what Rodrigue had longed for once, when secret kisses with one friend had woken new forms of devotion for another. But they were not far from what he imagined, either. 

Rodrigue is a Fraldarius. No Fraldarius has ever wed into the Blaiddyd line, though there is no edict against it. It is simply that the Fraldarius family swears itself to their kings in service, not in wedding ties. Rodrigue had never pictured anything more.

But that moment at the new prince’s cradle, standing beside the wife he loved, the king he offered his devotion, the queen he had found a kindred soul in, and with a second child of his own soon to follow—

Then, he was content.

When he goes home, he takes his sons to see their mother’s grave.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on twitter at [@marezafic](https://twitter.com/marezafic)! More information on this universe, fondly nicknamed the JCU (Jock Cinematic Universe), can be found in [this twitter moment](https://twitter.com/i/events/1195471121732243456?s=13).


End file.
